NOTEBOOK & DESPINA
When Tasos left construction and took a new job as a pastry chef he just switched from cement and lime to flour and butter. The quantities didn’t change. This was baking on an industrial scale, catering for the passengers of Olympic airlines. The job consumed him, up at 2am, he’d work all day then return home with armfuls of pastries for his family to taste. Was the texture right? Was it too dry? Was it too sweet? Despina shared her father’s dislike of too much sugar – less sweet meant she could always manage a second piece. His recipes were scribbled on any scraps of paper to hand, from bus tickets to old receipts – and so, as a New Year’s Eve present, Despina gave her father a beautiful hand-bound notebook. Ten years later Despina left home, followed by her sister; and their parent’s marriage disintegrated. As Tasos’s life grew increasingly chaotic after the divorce, Despina’s Mother rescued the notebook from his house. Despina has salvaged her father’s work, transcribing all of his recipes, adjusting the quantities for home cooks and testing them in preparation for a book.
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